My Dear Enemy (Meotjin Haru) (멋진 하루) (2008)

This meandering Korean drama develops gradually but there is no story to speak of except to say the lead female is an emotionally stunted ice golem harbouring resentment towards her male companion, a happy-go-lucky dolt, after their relationship ended without him paying back a debt; the movie follows them around after their reunion gives her the opportunity to get her money back, but first he has to scrounge around, gathering it bit by bit from various acquaintances on their, well, not exactly enthralling but wry, drily comic travels.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW

In The Cut (2003)

I love Meg Ryan as a non-comedic actress and I love Jane Campion's intelligent films, and I love Mark Ruffalo and mysteries and thrillers, which is why it pains me to say I don't very much love this ambitious Jane Campion mystery thriller starring a deadly serious Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo because while the movie is a clever feminist text with its message written into every line of dialogue and squeezed eloquently into the title and palpable in every scene (all of them, but consider for example Ryan and Ruffalo's first love scene which starts as a reenactment of an assault, or Ryan's self-conscious out-loud articulation of public transport poetry), In The Cut, about a serial killer who disarticulates women, doesn't work as a mystery thriller because everyone in the movie's claustrophobic circle of action is a disgusting misogynistic objectifier of women and long before the film ends it ceases to matter who among the lunatics - the really obvious culprit or one of the others on the periphery - is the killer, and unfortunately endscenes set in what is an absurd symbolic dreamscape do a disservice to the strong feminist text AND the mystery thriller.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

As if this treasure hunting and shoot'em up adventure game with stunning graphics, engaging storyline and likeable characters were not wonderful enough, the team that made it (the team behind the Crash Bandicoot games) have embedded in it a mini version of their Crash Bandicoot game - just another satisfying detail in a completely immersive experience involving touching family drama, a sprawling lifelong story, stunning settings from around the world, exciting gunfights and of course hugely satisfying Indiana Jones-style treasure hunting.

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★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Holiday Inn (1942)

Cleverly built around the themed song-and-dances performed at an inn on occasions such as Valentine's Day, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, this amiable musical from Irving Berlin has a dancer (Fred Astaire) and a singer (Bing Crosby) competing for the affections of their co-stars, and even if you loathe musicals, this light and frothy one with its debut presentation of Crosby's White Christmas will make you smile.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

The clever trick of the Ira Levin book can't be played out in film, certainly not three times, but this 1956 film adaptation starring a young Robert Wagner does a great job telling the suspenseful and at one key moment terrifying neo-noir story of a "talented mr ripley" who will do anything, even murder, to worm his way into his girlfriend's family's fortune.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Ghostbusters (1984)

It is hard to imagine, despite decades of advances in cinema technology and the various sequels and reboots that started with the Melissa McCarthy one in 2016, that anyone is ever going to improve upon this classic 80s comedy - even rewatching it today, so many years after its initial release in 1984, it impresses with its special effects and comedy, and Bill Murray is in top form as the drily hilarious Dr Peter Venkman who, with his fellow Ghostbusters, takes on New York's growing number of paranormal problems including the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Evil Dead (2013)

You know you are not the intended audience of this revoltor - it doesn't horrify with its excess of body fluids, just revolts - when you find yourself rolling your eyes at young adults who one minute stumble innocently upon a satanic book in the cellar of their cottage in the woods and the next spout lines with utter conviction about exactly how the summoned evil must be stopped, and because this humourless remake is played straight umlike the classic 1981 horror comedy original, how else can you react?

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Jason Bourne (2016)

The camera never stays still for more than a second so imagine watching an episode of The Amazing Race on The Zipper: the "contestants" are the most technologically-enabled but most bungling CIA team ever assembled for the franchise (and only them - there are zero outsiders in this world) and the "prize" they are vying for you might think is a personality because there isn't one between them nor one to be found at any of the "roadblocks" in Berlin, Greece, London or Las Vegas - now that Jason Bourne remembers everything, has his identity back and we all know his name, a personality seems to be the last missing thing.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Wicker Man (2006)

This dreadful remake of the original mystery thriller of 1973 - a sinister movie about a policeman investigating a child's disappearance from a creepy, cultish remote island community - updates the story by wheeling out a big, hollow wooden figure at the start the movie, too: Nicolas Cage in Edward Woodward's police officer role.

☆☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Intern (2015)

Another Nancy Meyers film populated with only emotionally robust caring types, The Intern tells the story of an elderly man who fills an internship role with an online fashion company and for his initially skeptical boss, CEO Jules, he quickly becomes an indispenable source of sage advice and a corporate guide through the tricky matters of a messy desk, handkerchiefs, unwanted erections and feminism.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Magic Magic (2013)

A young female traveller trapped in remote Chile in the company of a constantly whelping puppy and three personality-free travel companions (the worst being Michael Cera's incessantly talking Brink) witnesses animal cruelty, overdoses on unprescribed medication, doesn't have the others' confidence to jump off a rock into the ocean, and so descends gradually into madness and anyone watching this shrill, pointless, infuriating "psychological thriller" will likely do the same before the movie's exceedingly daft final exorcism scene.

☆☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

This science fiction sequel is fascinating for having special effects that are worse in 1984 than the prequel in 1968 sixteen years earlier, and where that Kubrick film was philosophical, metered, balletic and profound, this is like a DLC expansion pack offering fans a quick add-on storyline that isn't terrible (Russian and American astronauts investigate the failed Discovery One mission to Jupiter) but is certainly, compared with the original, obvious, cursory, and fairly forgettable with a narrative driven by Captain Kirk-style diary logs. 

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Birdman (2014)

What we tell ourselves and what our critics tell us, what the truth is and whether or not we or them or anyone else really gives a sh*t are the ideas tossed around in this "talky, depressing, philosophical bullsh*t" about a superhero movie celebrity trying to open a Broadway production, anxious about how it will be received.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

Years after its release in 2013, this M:I entry - the better-than-usual fourth in the series - happened to come on TV while I was sitting with the person I'd gone to see it with in the cinema, and neither of us could recall a single plot detail - only that Simon Pegg returns as Benji, that seemingly constipated comic-relief tech guy who bungles every part of the mission (Ethan, does Benji need to be trained up before going into the field?), that Ethan Hunt suction-cups up a Dubai skyscraper, races through a sandstorm, and that there is a stunt in a hotel involving diamonds and Mission: Impossible's clunkiest spy tool yet - a fake arm on a white man in a Chinese waiter uniform (guess who) - which all just goes to show how little bearing plot has on how enjoyable an M:I episode is.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Airplane II: The Sequel (aka Flying High II) (1982)

Ted Striker, Elaine and Captain Clarence Oveur are again aboard a doomed flight, this time to the moon, in this lesser sequel to 'Airplane!' (Flying High) that has plenty of dopey laughs in its first half but like the Mayflower One, short circuits and comes crashing down in its second.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Airplane! / Flying High (1980)

There are two types of people in the world: those that watch this cornball comedy classic with crossed-arms, po-faced, and others who snort and guffaw and howl with laughter at the disaster movie spoof full of daggy dad jokes, puns, sight gags, and Peter Graves' deadpan inappropriateness.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Christmas With The Kranks (2004)

Not as madcapped, as funny or as focused as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Tim Allen can't match Chevy Chase's ability to accentuate the absurd, but this is a harmless Christmas-themed comedy in which the Kranks decide to skip Christmas, much to the consternation of their neighbours.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

M:i:III (2006)

Number 3 is a return to form after the lamentable John Woo-directed second in the M:I series, and although it is slightly histrionic, Mission: Impossible 3 benefits from a chilling turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman as a sociopathic villain and is also aided by a threadbare plot centred around a McGuffin that allows action and spy thrills to come to the fore.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Teens familiar with the book series might appreciate this tiresome movie in which ancient feuding families, let's say "the Muggles and the Capulets", have their rift exascerbated by the blossoming love of Eric and Lena, a star-crossed pair of opposites a little like magic-casting Twilight versions of Romeo and Juliet with Southern accents.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Groundhog Day (1993)

Bill Murray is perfect as the worldweary, bad-mannered weather presenter Phil who finds himself living the same excruciating day over and over in small town America, in this hilarious 80s comedy classic from Harold Ramis which sees Phil first becoming dismayed by his situation, then taking full advantage of it, and finally learning the lesson that frees him.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS